Winning and Losing
by fieryashes91597
Summary: "You've lost again." Tsunade's POV during her retrieval arc


It's funny (not really) how in the most intense moments old memories push themselves through to the forefront of your mind. It is rather inconvenient actually. Distracting. And it is definitely not productive to remember a curious and ambitious boy when a manipulative and depraved man is waving a cursed sword around.

Some of the things you remember are stupid, like the smell of old scrolls as you sat side by side in the library—you read medical texts while he studied the jutsu notes of your granduncle. Or the taste of pork barbecue from the place your team always visited after long missions. Or the time you teamed up against the loud baka during sensei's bell exam.

Other memories seem slightly more relevant. You remember how he never hesitated before the final blow, how he never flinched from the taste of blood in his mouth. The who, where, _why_ —all of the variables that could cut a normal man's soul with their discrepancies and absent justifications—they didn't matter to him. It was so wrenchingly simple for him to slide his sword through flesh and see eyes dim to nothing. You remember how you had admired him for it. He was everything the shinobi handbook said that you should be. The exact opposite of Jiraiya with his idiocy and defiance and desire for justice in a grey world.

You ignored the fact that it could have just as easily been you with his sword through your gut. After all, there was no difference for him between you and the nameless dead on the floor. It would have been so easy—a smooth arching of his arm and not a second glance. Now you wonder why it took him so long to do just that. It is almost like he was taunting you all these years, like back when you were both genin with an idiot teammate to provoke and something to prove. He is teasing you with the knowledge that he could have killed you at any second and it would have been nothing, and it hurts you now to think about why he didn't. You wonder what role he has laid for you in his plans because there can be no other reason than that you're still a tool in his game. And you hate that more than anything.

You hate that you're nothing more to him than a piece on his shogi board or another dead body on the ground. When he has always been so much more to you. When he was a hero, a teammate, a precious person—part of your dream like all the men in your life that you have now lost—for so long that it's hard to remove him from those spots in your heart, that it's hard to believe that he was never really that person.

But here you are; he has killed your sensei and taunted you with your beloved dead, and he's trying to kill this boy...this annoying, dreaming, idiotic, wonderful boy. His sword is (finally) piercing your chest and the way he says your name burns even more than the cut of his sword—it is not hateful or even cold, but empty, missing all the things it could have held—the exact opposite of the way Jiraiya says your name. He says he doesn't want to kill you, and you believe him only because he has never cared enough to want you either alive or dead and because you could still possibly be a useful tool.

Perhaps you also start to hate the foolish girl who admired the careless swing of this man's sword. You might have been able to forgive some clueless little girl somewhere except for the fact that that girl was _you_ , and you've never been able to forgive yourself for anything.

Somehow, you dredge up the strength to fight back. You surprise yourself, and him, with how easy it is for you to rupture his organs with your fists. It seems you were able to remove this man from your heart after all...at least that is the dishonest thought you cling to. It just might break you now to recognize that you've finally caught up to the boy you admired so long ago, that you have finally adopted the ease in which he kills just in time to kill him. It is the first time you wish that killing was harder. That it wasn't so easy to feel bones shatter beneath skin.

In the end he is dead, and you hate that you don't care. Well, it's nothing a few bottles of saké can't fix. You would have gone right back to the casino too, if it wasn't for the injured boy and the sword holes in your shirt and Jiraiya just standing there looking so unbelievably sad. Jiraiya...so full of hope and trust and perseverance and desire to rescue an old friend from himself. You just killed that old friend. You half expect him to (finally) turn his back on you or yell and fight or do just about anything except what he actually does. He says your name, and it still holds all the old honest emotions that it used to when you were young and the world was still so big. You think it was foolish of you to expect a negative reaction...Jiraiya always forgives you...

You have always had shit luck. Your grandfather, granduncle, and parents are dead; your little brother and lover are dead; your sensei and his successor are dead; the kids you knew from your Academy days are all long dead, too, save for one. All that's left is the pervy baka who always forgives you, your nagging apprentice who would foolishly follow you anywhere, and this silly-looking gaki who has done the impossible. You've lost yet another bet so you give up your grandfather's necklace (you hope for the last time) and accept the position of Hokage. The idiot pervert is bringing you back to Konoha where you'll spend your time doing paperwork and being yelled at by Shizune for drinking too much. Dammit. You're marching from the freedom of travel and casinos to the burden of paperwork and responsibility...and you had thought that this bet was a guaranteed win.

So you're briefcase is filled with enough debt slips to bankrupt a large town and you're returning to the cursed village you abandoned decades ago and you killed an old traitorous teammate yesterday. Shizune is smiling at the thought of your sobriety and Jiraiya is leering with that same stupid grin from your (not really) childhood and the gaki won't shut up about ramen and Hokage.

You bite your lip and curse at the cards you've been dealt. You've lost again.

So why does it feel like you've finally won?


End file.
